


One Foot in Front of the Other

by Name1



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Greef the wingman, Hurt and comfort, baby steps, idiots to lovers, slight mention of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26820520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name1/pseuds/Name1
Summary: “We're not involved. We're partners," Din states, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.Greef laughs, thinking he’s pulling his chain. “Yeah,” he says, adding air quotes with his fingers, "right, 'partners'. Got it."Din tilts his helmet at him curiously. “We are," he insists, a bit confused why this is so hard for Greef to grasp."All right, all right, if that's what you kids are calling it these days. Sure," he says, playing along. “You know we're all adults here, right? The kid's tucked away--the euphemisms aren't necessary ” “We’re partners," Din repeats, "not whatever your eyebrows are suggesting.”It’s only then, does Greef realize he’s not kidding. Shit. “Seriously?”
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Cara Dune & Greef Karga
Comments: 26
Kudos: 148





	One Foot in Front of the Other

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to wrap most of the canon-ish stuff I was inspired to write from S1 before S2 airs, but I know I won't make it. Too many random dangling drafts, but I'll try. Enjoy a rare third post in a week :D  
> Sorry for grammatical oversight, I'll give it an edit tomorrow.

Greef stared at the blinking comm for a long couple of seconds before finally answering it. 

He knew it could be a trap, but knowing the signature attached to it, decided it was worth the risk of taking the incoming message.

He was greeted with Mando's (Din's) helmet appearing in front of him, asking if he could lay low for a day or two, planet-side. When he agreed, his Mandalorian friend asked if he happened to know a doctor that he could trust. _'Not for him'_ , he said, but for his partner.

Greef's first thought was to the kid. It was funny Din called him his _'partner'_ but it was probably wise--you never knew who could be listening. 

"Of course,” he tells him, “land to the North. I'll meet you outside the city gate. I’ll call the doctor once you get settled."

"Bring a speeder," was all the other man said, before he ended the transmission. He must be coming in under duress, otherwise he could just carry the kid, Greef thought, worriedly. _Don't jump to conclusions_ , _it's probably fine_ , he tells himself. As soon as the transmission ended, Greef got to work.

......................

He rode the speeder to the edge of the city gate and waited for his friend, but he didn't have to wait long until the ship landed smoothly and he heard the familiar hiss of the landing mechanism of the Crest kicking up sand and dirt as it made contact with the dry ground. The ramp lowered quickly, and he couldn't believe his eyes. It wasn't the sight of the man wearing full armor in the heat of the desert that made his eyes widen; instead, it was the form of the "partner" that was leaning heavily against him--too heavily for his liking. 

There was no mistaking that silhouette even with the glaring sun as a backdrop--the shape of the body, the armor, and the hair--that was Cara _'seeks out trouble like a magnet'_ Dune. Greef couldn't believe they were still traveling together after all this time. 

Din offered him a brief greeting, before getting right to the point. “She needs a doctor—probably a surgeon. Can you help her?”

The older man snapped out of his surprise. “Of course. She can sit on the bike, while I call my contact.” 

Din situates her good leg on the bike platform first, before easing the one with the damaged foot next. The kid in his protective carrier sits beside her; his whole little body radiating worry.

"SHE is right here and can hear you just fine," Cara says.

Din’s not in the mood. Greef turns to watch him as he chides Cara for her carelessness. "Maybe _SHE_ shouldn't be such an idiot and jump through a blast door that was closing. It's two-inch thick steel. Almost as thick as your skull!"

His head turns back to Cara anticipating her comeback to Din. "Maybe _SHE_ was saving your ass by pushing you through it before it closed on you, separating you from your kid!"

Din sounds exasperated even through the helmet. "Maybe _SHE_ should—”

Greef had enough. His head was already throbbing and they'd been here all of thirty seconds.

“Maybe you _both_ should shut up until we know _you're_ not dying," he suggested, as he pointed a finger in her direction, "then you can get back to fighting or flirting or whatever the hell it is you're doing that's making me uncomfortable.”

Din jumped in again, ignoring the second half of what he heard and focusing on the first bit. "No one's dying if you can find a doctor."

"Don't be so dramatic, Din. Of course, I'm not dying,” Cara tells him, feeling well enough still to roll her eyes..

"You're calling ME dramatic?"

They bickered the whole way into the residential side of town that Greef called home. “Help her into my house. There's a spare bedroom off the living room,” he tells Din, who already has his shoulder up under her arm to help her get to a standing position.

The covered floating container that conceals the kid follows them in. Greef helps disguise it in his kitchen before the doctor he called arrives. _He's pretty protective of that green bean too, after all._

Cara is breathing heavily as Din (with Greef's help) assists her getting to the middle of the bed while jostling her ankle as little as possible. It's only then does Greef see Din's cause for worry as he gets a good look at the mangled appendage. There's only so much joking they can do before they have to face how serious this looks. Despite the helmet in place, he can see a crack in Din's usually stoic presence, watching her suffer in silence. 

Cara was usually loud and boisterous when trying to brush off an injury, which makes her silence all the more striking. Her foot is dangling at a completely unnatural angle; all but detached from where her ankle should attach it to her leg. It must have gotten crushed and mangled in the door Din spoke of. He's both disturbed and impressed she's not showing more pain across her face. She won’t be able to fight the blood loss forever, but she’s still putting on a strong front as long as she can. At the sound of the knock ten minutes later, Greef shows the doctor--an older human looking physician--into the back room.

By this point Cara's lying back against the pillows, unable to sit up and appear unaffected any longer. She threw on one of Greef’s long sleeved shirts last minute to cover the ink on her arm and her lack of recognizable top armor Din had helped her shrug off. Karga had said he kind of trusted this guy, but they couldn’t take too many precautions. At hearing Greef greeting the physician, Din takes a step back from her bed and flattens his back against the wall behind the door so there's room for the doctor to come in. He's still behind the door when it opens though. He doesn’t even think about how intimidating he might look looming in the dark corner, but he wants to keep an eye on Cara without being in the way.

From Din's position, he watches unseen, as Greef and the doctor step into the dimly lit room. The doctor takes in her form before leering at her none too subtly—there aren’t many women on Nevarro anymore, and there's no amount of clothing that could conceal the obvious. She stares right back at him, struggling stubbornly to stay awake and daring him to ogle her, but clearly incapacitated to some extent. She hates appearing weak in any way and is fighting through the pain-induced haze filling her mind to appear more capable than she really is at the moment.

He looks at her foot before his eyes trail up her pant-covered legs; taking in the shape of her calves, her knees, and her thi--

"Focus on her foot,” Din’s voice comes from directly behind him, making him visibly jump.

The man spins as the deep voice from behind the door. The armored faceless man is as intimidating as Greef's ever seen him and he’s ready to intervene at a moment’s notice if the doctor tries to bolt. It’s not everyday you find a Mandalorian at your back. The doctor turns to Greef since he hired him, and addresses him directly instead. "I'm going to need to ask her husband to leave during the examination,” he says, “and I'll have to ask her to remove all her weapons.”

Despite the pain she’s in, she can’t stay quiet to focus on her breathing any longer. She chooses to ignore the implications of how he addressed Din and how Din didn't immediately correct him _. That’s for another time ..._

Despite her brain feeling fuzzy, she looks the doctor right in his eyes. "Fuck off, you're not taking my blaster. I don't know you."

The doctor stands his ground. "Then I'm not touching your foot.”

“Why would I shoot you if you’re fixing me?” she argues, her short temper only made shorter while in pain.

“People lash out when they’re in pain,” he explains, advocating for his own safety, “and how do _I_ know this isn't a trap you set for _me_? You could be planning on –"

Cara finds that insulting and tells him so.“Because if it was a trap, you'd already be dead, shit-head.”

“Cara!” Din snaps.

Din knows better than to talk over her or make a decision for her, but he knows this guy is one more sentence from leaving them high and dry and taking the chance of fixing her foot with him. He turns to address the doctor. “If she gives you her gun, you'll help her?” he asks.

“Yes, of course," the physician agrees.

“Give him your blaster, Cara,” Din tells her without further preamble, and the flicker of confused betrayal he saw flicker across her face was as if he just sold all their secrets to the Empire. As close as they were, the intensity of her eat-shit look still made him waver a bit. He hadn’t seen it really directed at him before, but he’d answer for it soon enough. She doesn't fight him though, and hands it over. Greef holds it for safekeeping.

“You have to leave now so I can examine her,” the doctor reminds Din.

She nods tensely to Din, and if he wasn't so perfectly in tune with her mannerisms he would have missed the distressed look behind her stoic mask. He makes a show of walking to her side and taking out his blaster. He proceeds to inspect it, load it, and places it in her hand that's laying on the bed--wrapping her finger around the trigger before turning to leave.

She grins at him as soon as she gets the message. _She should never have doubted him_.

Before the doctor can even try to argue, Din gets in the last word. “She gave up her weapon; she upheld her end of the bargain," Din tells the other man. Gesturing to the blaster in her hand, he states somewhat unnecessarily, "that one's mine.”

She looks so much more herself now than she did without a weapon by her side, but despite having his weapon in her hand, Din is still hesitating by the door. It doesn't feel right just leaving.....

Luckily, Cara gives him a verbal nudge. "Go on you idiot, stop posturing,” she says annoyedly, but it's filled with so much warmth that the meaning comes across the exact opposite of her words. _Words were pretty much meaningless these days between them anyway. They didn't rely on them at all to communicate--oftentimes doing the exact opposite of what they were saying just to get a coveted laugh or an exaggerated sigh out of each other._

“Be a good patient and try to listen for once,” he imparts, before he opens the door to step through it. "I know it must be hard for you."

“I'm going to kick your ass," she hollers at his retreating back.

“With what foot?” he calls back to her with one hand still on the door.

“You hand me your loaded blaster and then make a _foot_ joke? Has anyone ever told you need better survival skills?”

He turns back to her and she swears she can ' _see_ ' his smile clear as day. “ _You_ have, _frequently_.”

The doctor clears his throat, gesturing to her bloody mangled foot. “Tick tock.”

Din moves to follow Greef into the adjacent living room. With a final glance from the doorway he tells Cara, but more so the doctor, “I'll be right outside.”

Din was pacing during the short examination and he couldn't stop himself. His fingers were twitchy and his foot kept tapping any time he stood still. 

Greef tries to distract him before he wears a hole through his floor. If he watches his helmet glance back at the closed door once more, he thinks he might throw something at him.

“I can't believe you've been together this whole time,' he says, trying to sound casual.

“Yeah,” is Din’s gruff reply. The way he’s staring a whole through the door, Greef was surprised he got a single-word answer at all.

He tries again to draw his attention away from the fascinating door. “How long have you two been..... you know,” he asks, with a waggle of his eyebrows to convey his meaning.

“I'm not getting you,” Din says, finally looking away from the door. “What do you mean?”

“You know, how long have you two been involved-- _romantically_ I mean?”

“We're not _involved_. We're partners," Din states, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Greef laughs, thinking he’s pulling his chain. “Yeah,” he says, adding air quotes with his fingers, "right, ' _partners_ '. Got it."

Din tilts his helmet at him curiously. “We are," he insists, a bit confused why this is so hard for Greef to grasp.

"All right, all right, if that's what you kids are calling it these days. Sure," he says, playing along. “You know we're all adults here, right? The kid's tucked away--the euphemisms aren't necessary.”

“We’re _partners_ ," Din repeats, "not whatever your eyebrows are suggesting.”

It’s only then, does Greef realize he’s not kidding. _Shit_.

“Seriously?” he asks, more than a little in disbelief; certain he must have gotten it wrong somehow. “Bullshit," he decides. "With how she looks at you? With how you look at her? Come on, I'm old but I can still see.”

"And just _how_ do I look at her, supposedly?" the man wearing the steel helmet asks. "You can't even see my face." 

“I don't have to," the older man explains. "I see it all the same--your voice, your posture, your proximity when she needed you. The way you move in sync...go ahead, tell me that’s not something special.”

“We've _always_ moved in sync since day-one” Din argues, only realizing after the words left their mouth just how that sounded.

Greef lets out a laugh that serves to actually lesson the knot in Din's stomach. "You're not helping your argument , but by all means go ahead and help mine….."

Din's voice is more insistent. "You're imagining things."

He tries to make it simple.

“Look Din, I’ve known you a long time. I’ve never seen you so …..” he pauses to struggle finding the right word, “ _alive_ , as when she’s around.”

He knows Greef won't let this go until he admits something that will satisfy his well-meaning interrogation. The knot of worry in his stomach about her foot has suddenly morphed into a knot of worry about personal details he couldn't possibly explain to the older man because he and Cara hadn't even figured them out for themselves. 

He turns the question around. “How do I look at her then? Tell me.”

That one is easy, Greef thinks. “Like she hung the moons and all the stars single handedly,” he says without flourish.

_That sounds about right actually,_ Din thinks. "Are you trying to tell me she didn't. That's well within her ability."

When Din doesn't supply any more insight into their relationship, Greef takes pity on him and stops teasing. “No shitting me--you guys _really_ aren't together?”

Din really doesn’t want to be having this conversation right now but he knows what Greef’s like once he has an idea stuck in his head--he could talk to a brick wall and come out feeling like he won. He can’t lie and say he and Cara aren’t _together_ in a lot of ways (they share a bed and a kid), so he gives him the same excuse he tells himself—the same excuse Cara tells herself. “We can't afford any weakness," he says almost sadly, "there's too much at stake.”

That must have been the wrong thing to say because the older man shakes his head in refusal of that statement. “If you're afraid it would make you both weak--that’s bullshit. It would give you something to _lose_ , but you already seem to have that. Maybe something worth _fighting for_ would be a nice trade up.”

Greef remembers back to the time Cara spent working with him. “You know Din, the whole time she lived here she never so much as paid attention to anyone else. She doesn't choose to be around someone unless she wants to be.”

Din decides to go for one moment of honesty, hoping they can wrap this up and focus back on the door that’s separating him from Cara. _He hasn’t heard any shots fired, so that’s good._

"I'll say this, there's never been _anyone_ like Cara." he says simply, as if that explains everything-- and as if he just admitted something big without realizing it.

Greef can’t suppress a chuckle at that. "I should hope not, imagine the world with more than one of her in it.”

“Stars, no…”

Greef understands this is probably not the conversation the other man wants to have right now, so he gives him another option. “Look, if you won't admit it to me, maybe admit it to her then. This injury could have been much worse....”

Din lets out a heavy sigh, and speaks to Greef without actually looking at him. "Look at her though. What do I possibly have to offer someone like her?"

_Now they were getting somewhere_ , Karga thinks. “You've offered her everything already and she's clung to it with both hands," he reminds the younger man in front of him, "all while holding a blaster in one and the green bean in the other. She hasn’t turned away anything you’ve offered her: a home, a family, security, intimacy.”

Din glares at him through the visor as if it wasn't even there. “I told you, we're not----"

“I don't mean intimacy like _that,"_ he insists. "I mean the calm moments when the firefight dies down and there’s nothing but the two of you and the quiet of the ship. I mean _closeness;_ being vulnerable with someone and knowing they're not going to exploit it--that kind of intimacy. You've been around Dune too long Din, get your mind out of the gutter.”

Din couldn't even chuckle at the joke Cara would love. He felt sick at the thought of someone taking advantage of her in any way. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he knew she had a soft heart; generous, compassionate, and protective to a fault--often at her own expense. 

Greef can practically see the wheels turning in his friend's head under all that beskar. “You're both seem happy enough, but you're walking when you should be running. Go for it. I don't think she'll let you down.”

Apparently one honest confession spurred a second one from the man in question. “I don’t know if she even looks at me like that.”

Greef leans closer to him and rests his elbows on his knees so he can speak more quietly “You’re too close to see it," he explains. "As an outsider looking in, it’s clear. Trust me.”

"Maybe......"

That door will open any second so he wraps it up. “Let me drop some wisdom your way since you're still young."

Din's helmet cocks to the side in disbelief.

"Young-ish then," Greef corrects."Younger than me."

"Fine what's your advice, wise old man?"

Greef ignores the petty jab--he knows he's not getting any younger. "When you get to my age, the biggest regrets you have aren’t the things you _did_ and wish you didn't--they're the things you _didn't_ do and always wish you had. The risks you should have taken are the things that keep you up at night. There are very few good, _truly good_ women," he tells him, gesturing to the door, "and that in _there_ , is a _good_ woman--one of the rare few. And to top it off she puts up with your shit.”

“Is it really that obvious? The way I look at her?” Din asks, finally tearing his eyes away from the door.

“No, not to everyone else," Greef says honestly, "and clearly not to _her_ if she hasn't called you on it. She's not one to beat around the bush and her bullshit meter has two settings: on and off.”

The older man leans back from his knees so he can reach into his pocket.

“I have something you should see. Maybe it'll help light a fire under you.” Greef produces a puck in his hand and slides it across the table to the other man. It lights up and there she is in all her glory. Din feels his breath catch in his throat, knowing there’s another round of people looking for her. 

_Shit._

“Life is short. Don't be an idiot,"he tells him as his last bit of advice, before he lets it drop.

“I always feel like an idiot when she's around,” Din says, surprisingly in good humor. Just seeing her smirk puts him in a better mood, apparently.

Greef claps him hard on the back twice and laughs. “That's how you know it’s the real deal. You're screwed, my friend." He sees Din staring at the disk and feels guilty for using it to get his attention. "Look, don't worry about the puck. We'll figure out how to deal with this new bounty after she's on her feet again, _no pun intended_ , and she can yell at you herself for worrying too much.”

“I never thanked you for clearing her chain code, Greef. It’s not your fault they’re still after her.” He didn’t want the other man to feel guilty either. He'd done a lot to help them both over the last year.

“You don’t have to thank me," Greef tells him, "she thanked me herself a long time ago. Even if she hadn't worked in the town for a while, I would have found a way to get it cleared anyway. She deserves it.”

………………………………………..

It took everything for the doctor to convince him to leave while he examined her and when he motioned they could come back in, Din was back by her side in only four strides. When the physician declares that emergency surgery on their friend's poor bed is the best chance to save her foot, the look of fear that's so rare on her strong face makes Din’s adrenaline pump in his veins in preparation to fight the invisible enemy that's hurting her right in front of him. 

The doctor tries to talk to Din and Greef quietly while Cara just lays there groggily as the first round of sedative kicks in (the first pill of three), but Din insists whatever he has to say he can say so she can hear it. It’s her foot after all and he won't insult her by talking about her behind her back, so he grills the doctor right in front of her in plain sight. 

“Do you think you can save it?” He’d been so focused on keeping her positive and alert and joking he’d never allowed himself to really think about what it would mean if her foot couldn’t be saved. 

She had been right--it was only because of her that he hadn’t been separated from the kid earlier today. She saved him again, and _again_ it seemed she’d suffer for it. _If she was permanently disabled because of him……her strength and her independence would be lost too. He couldn't even think about living with that kind of guilt._

“I won’t lie to you," the doctor replies, breaking Din out of his morbid thoughts. "It’s bad, but I think I can get everything lined up and inject enough living cement into the bone to keep it from necrosing. To give the joint more strength I can place some pins or screws, inject some bacta into the surrounding tissue, and brace it while the bones fuse overnight. If there's no sign of tissue death by the morning, she should be in the clear.”

“Will she regain full use of it?” is Din's next question. 

“If everything goes according to plan, almost certainly," the physician replies. "It's a tricky operation though. I'll require complete concentration.” 

He turns to face his actual patient. "I'm going to need to fully sedate you for the surgery," the doctor says to Cara, putting two more of the pills in her hand that will fully take her under. "It shouldn't take more than an hour or two, but I'll need to be left alone during the procedure." Up until now, Greef's just been in the corner for moral support, but he turns sharply to see Din's reaction, knowing he won’t be on board with that.

Din's helmet affords him only a few luxuries, but the fact that he's been looking at Cara this whole time while it appears he's watching the physician is one of them. Din saw the almost imperceptible shift of her eyes to his. No one else would have seen it, but he certainly did. Cara was the furthest thing from a coward Din had ever come across, but she had to be uneasy about such a prospect; or maybe he was just uneasy enough for the both of them.

Cara's sleepy from the pain relief he administered combined with the loss of blood, and she just stared at him blankly. 

As strong as she was, he knew she was in no state to be making decisions right now or being left alone once further sedated. 

Din know's it'll start an argument but he doesn't really care. “Look, I'm sure you're a great doctor, but that's not gonna happen.”

“ _You_ look," the man who's about to operate on her foot argues. "I'm going to try to save your wife's foot, but I can't with you staring a hole through my back.” Din doesn't even think to correct the wording he's certain Cara's picked up on as well. It's not the time to argue semantics. This is the second or third time the other man had used that word and Din was getting more accustomed to it than he probably should.

"I'll sit in the corner. You won't even know I’m there, but there's no fucking way I'm leaving her incapacitated for an hour with you--surgery or not." Cara felt secure enough with Din's stubborn refusal to leave that she swallowed the last two pills and drifted off shortly after. He wouldn't betray that trust for anything, so he found a chair in the corner of the room and made himself appear as invisible as possible so the doctor could begin without delay.

The surgery ended up taking just over two hours. True to his word, Din sat in the corner through all of the cutting and stitching and horrible sounds as he aligned the fractured bones before drilling into them to fix them in place.

The Doctor leaves and in his wake he leaves some medicine behind and instructions not to touch the dressing or stitches for 24 hours. Din sees him to the door with the most amicable parting words he can manage. “Thank you for helping her, but you forgot you were ever here; forget that you ever saw us, if you know what’s good for you.”

“I’d like nothing more than to forget this whole day never happened," he agrees, and heads out into the night.

He goes to see her and admits Greef was right about at least one thing. The feeling of relief at seeing her coloring back is powerful and makes his chest ache. _Of course, Greef was right. He certainly boasted it enough........_

He holds her hand waiting for her to come around. It's almost half an hour later when she stirs and he feels her fingers squeeze his hand--stronger than before the surgery and the extra blood she had received. He watched her face to see if there was anything to Greef's claim that she felt the same way he did. He didn't have to wait long.

When she saw him, her face lit up, her whole demeanor changed, and she looked even more lovely with the warm flush of affection on her cheeks at sight of his familiar 'face'. _Okay, so maybe there was something to the older man's observation. There might be something after all ...._

"Do I still have my foot?" she says, when her eyes focus on him and her tongue doesn't feel like lead.

"Yes. Everything's going to be fine," he assures her, only partially referring to the injury. 

She tries to smile, but it's adorably crooked. "I'll make fun of you for being a fussy protective dumbass later, okay?"

"I'll remind you if you forget,” he teases her. “You still look a little drowsy.”

"Thanks for being stubborn and staying," she says seriously. "I'm not sure I could have brought myself to ask."

“That's why I did it.”

He brings the kid in to see her to assure him she's okay and on the mend. While this thing between him and Cara was still uncertain, at least things with the kid were easy. That fuzzy sneaky bean was so attached to him and his face lit up and his little arms outstretched as soon as Din's helmet came into view. He had a hard time believing he was a good father, but Cara always belayed his fears and told him he was. He was definitely better than he had been a year ago--after much trial and error and genuine desire to be _better_. At the very least, the kid was spoiled. He was always held by one of them, so the majority of the day he had to stay hidden in his pod must have been undesirable to say the least. He could likely sense Din’s apprehension and was on edge too.

One thing was clear. He wasn’t just “as his father” any longer--he _was_ his father, plain and simple. He wondered how a child could ever grow attached to him without seeing his face, but his foundling seemed to take after Cara in that regard. The sight of his helmet and his armor made the kid perk up from across a crowded room. The kid he saved clearly adored him and the feeling was mutual. Something shifted in Din’s chest every time the kid reached toward him to be picked up or held and he’d lost count of the number of times the baby had found his way into the bunk they shared at night. He always preferred warm cuddles to sleeping in his own bed and Cara only encouraged it by laughing every time they woke up in the night to find a fuzzy ear or two in their face. That kid was spoiled rotten now. Cara had gotten in the habit of holding him as he fell asleep and he simply refused to sleep now if she wasn’t there. Admittedly, she was a much better pillow than Din, and since he went to them both for safety and comfort, he tried not to be jealous. That frog-chasing menace deserved all the love and attention he wanted and then some. 

He held the kid facing her, so he could see Cara was going to be just fine, but he was so squirmy in his efforts to get to her that Din could hardly wrangle him.

“It’s fine, hand him over," she says, and reaches for their kid.

“Be gentle, don’t climb on her legs” he reminded Bean, but it was pointless--as soon as he touched her, he cuddled right on her chest and didn't move again.

"Come on, there’s room for you too you know," she says, and shifts to one side. Din laid down next to her on her propped up pillows and stretched out his legs on the bed.

“You two get some sleep," he tells his bedmates, the smaller of which was already asleep. "I’ll stay up for a while and keep watch.”

..............................

The next night

"I feel like an invalid." She's still bed-bound, and the kid is proudly sitting his entire body on her chest, just staring at her like a tiny sentinel. He's a pretty good monitor, to be honest. If she moves too much, he makes an alarming chirp that gets Din's attention. That cute little snitch…..

"You _should_ be in bed,"Din retorts."You're healing,"

"Thanks to you." She can eat some humble pie and admit that him finding a doctor as fast as he did is the only reason her foot is still attached. She strokes the kids ears idly since he's not planning on moving any time soon. She hopes he's not worried like he was earlier. When she lifts his ears up they fall back down as he watches her.

"Don’t thank me," Din tells her. "You _got_ this injury because of me, remember?"

"And _you_ got me to a doctor," she reminds him. "We'll pay Greef back right?"

"Don't worry about that. It’s already taken care of," he assures her. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, you know that right?" _Words are hard but losing her would be worse._

"Yeah, I know. That'll get you in trouble," she teases him, feeling well enough to pull it off.

"Shut up Dune. Next time maybe you'll get your _mouth_ stuck in a door and I'll have some peace and quiet."

She lets out a laugh. “You wouldn’t know what to do with all the quiet, without me nagging you.”

It was easy to revert back to jokes and teasing, but he was frighteningly honest just this once to see how she reacted.

"I was worried about you," he tells her.

She looked almost guilty that he had been upset or worried because of her. "Were you? You didn't need to worry," she tells him. "This little guy's got the worry more than covered. Look at his little ears. They're still so low."

He strokes an ear too, needing the same distraction as her, but still manages to tell her honestly, "I know, but I couldn’t help it."

She was looking somewhere in the vicinity of his neck now--that's how he knew she was really hearing him. Her eyes always dropped slightly before saying something important. "Thanks for worrying about me. You didn't have to ........but thank you for doing it anyway"

..................................

After the sun had been down for hours and the stars had brought with them cooler air, he helped her take off the hard casing the doctor placed, change her bandages while slapping her hands away from doing it herself, and re-wrap it in a soft yet sturdy cloth cast. Greef had made them all dinner and while she had appreciated it, his constant in and out of her room to check on her had gotten to be too much. She wasn't used to being fussed over--she liked to lick her wounds in private. After Karga's snores could be heard masking the tiny snores of the green bean now sleeping at his feet on the living room couch, Cara had turned to Din with a mischievous glint in her eyes. 

"You going to help me bust outta here or what?" she asks him conspiratorially. 

"You proposing a jailbreak?" he asks, with all the seriousness of planning a job.

"I'll need your help," she admits, cringing even as she says it..

"I won't even tease you for that," he says. "I know how hard that must have been for you to say, but if you weren't healing I'd _probably_ say you always need my help."

"Oh shut up, and help me stand."

He has his arm around her and her arm's slung over his shoulder so she can take little hope to the outside. He turns them to the right of the building, where the service stairs are.

"Stairs?" she asked, clearly surprised. "Where are we going?" She thought they'd just stand outside the door to get some air.

"The roof," he explains. "You need me to carry you?"

"Shut the kriff up. Don’t you dare even try."

He helps her up to the roof. Leaning against him heavily, she made it hop by little hop up the stairs. 

"Thanks for helping me make a great escape," she tells him once they get to the top. "Greef worries like an old woman."

"I thought you might like some fresh air," he says, as he eases her down onto the ground so she can lean back and helps her straighten her leg out in front of her. He's not wearing his armor or cape, so he takes off his boots and stacks them so she can prop up her leg. It's the best he can manage on the spot.

She scoots closer to him and rests her head against his shoulder. His arm goes around her to make her more comfortable and they don't say anything for a long time. 

"The stars look so different from down here, you know," she says, finally breaking the silence. "The galaxies and everything are beautiful in such a different way from the ground."

"Yeah.....it's nice," Din agrees, listening to her words, but also just enjoying the easiness of being together.

"There were years I couldn't even enjoy their beauty after.....you know," she tells him. "I couldn't look up at all." 

He does know. It must be hard, even now. She talks about it more now than she used to though, but still kind of trails off at the end sometimes like she doesn't know which tense she should be using.

“Anything in the night sky seemed to remind me," she continues, when she feels he's listening in the quiet and comforting way he does. "I always felt like when I looked up I was looking for some evidence of it still being there--maybe catching a glimpse of a piece of it by chance."

He nods. He never knows what to say when she mentions her life ......before. Whatever he says always sounds hollow to his ears and she deserved better than that, so he just listens. 

"Space travel is one thing," she says. "You're surrounded by stars so you're almost blind to them, but watching them from the ground is different. You can't help but focus on every point of light and every nebula or collection of colorful dust when they're not zooming past you. There's something so deep and quintessentially human in the most basic way about watching the night sky--the stars themselves--that I had lost for such a long time."

"What changed?" he asked, when he felt he could actually add to her musings. "What made you look at them again?" he asked, curious about what had shifted so monumentally to change her entire outlook.

"You did,” she tells him simply, “you and the kid."

She takes a slow breath and speaks again. “For the first time since it happened, when I looked up, I wasn't constantly searching for the family I had lost—when I was least expecting it, a new one had snuck up on me. I wasn't looking for a piece of debris to hang onto a memory-- I had started to make new ones--happier ones. Do you remember watching the stars together on Ryloth?” she says.

He remembered that night well. He finishes her recollection. 

“Yeah, of course. We fell asleep out in the open like a pair of idiots watching the shooting stars--trying to see who counted the most. We were covered in mosquito bites for weeks. I seem to remember I won though.”

She laughs. _They both knew she had won._

“I remember I had spent an hour watching the meteor shower with you and realized I had been looking at the stars without even realizing it. I wasn't searching for something, or remembering things better left forgotten; I was just enjoying the night sky with you—seeing it as it was meant to be seen for the first time since ..... _that day_.”

It was easier to talk in the dark with just the light of the stars above them. Cara had initiated the warm cuddle and it gave him courage to speak plainly. Greef's words from earlier were floating around his brain.

“I know me and the kid will never replace the family you lost, but we're here in all our clumsy and dysfunctional glory, if you'll have us.”

Somehow something had changed in the air. Despite his effort to make his words seem humorous and light, there was something else under the surface he couldn’t quite hide. He wondered if she picked up on it.

“I'll have you.” The lack of teasing was the only clue he had needed. He guessed she felt it too. Something was starting to shift.....

“For how long?" he asks her. "I know I'm not the easiest person to live with.” Suddenly it was as if all the bugs had stopped buzzing, the lizards had stopped calling, and the only sound was her breathing. 

She doesn't have to think before answering. “For as long as you’ll have _me_. And for the record, you're obnoxiously easy to live with. It's annoying, really," she says, and he can imagine her fake annoyed expression in the dark.

“So....the next fifty years then? I think that seems more than reasonable.”

The way he made it sounds like a practical business proposition made her smile. 

“That’s a good start," she tells him, "or at least until I’m so old and useless you won’t want me here anymore.”

“That’ll never happen. I’ll always want you here.”

“Then I’ll _be_ here. It’s that simple.”

“That simple huh?” Din asks, still surprised it could be that easy. _They just had a whole conversation kind of about commitment without the sun imploding or rounds being fired._

“We’re not all as complicated as you, Din," she quips back.

“ _Me_?" he asks in shocked disbelief. "You’re the most complicated person I’ve ever met.”

“We’re having a moment," she teases him. "Shut it and put your other arm around me.”

“So bossy," he complains, but it's not really a complaint at all. She doesn't have to ask twice. His other arm wraps around her.

“I just know what I want. That’s not bossy, that's decisive," she corrects him with a quiet laugh.

“And what _do_ you want?”

“To spend the night up here with you. Watching the stars.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

He can almost feel her smile against his shoulder. "At least until Greef finds us up here and starts scolding us like wayward children."

"I'll say it was all your idea to escape," he assures her, making her gasp in fake outrage. "Maybe he'll take mercy on me and keep the nagging to a minimum." 

"I'm saying it was _your idea_ all along. Good luck." 

"Brave _and_ honest; you're the total package, Cara Dune."

"You love it, shut up."

He wasn't even going to try to argue such a basic fact. He just kept his arms around her as they got comfortable for a long night on the roof. 

……………………………..

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)  
> I'd love to hear from you if you enjoyed it!  
> You guys are great. Thank you!


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